Category Archives: Right wing

Geller and Spencer claim 5,000 at ‘Ground Zero mosque’ protest

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SIOA protest (1)

Protestors gathered in lower Manhattan mid-day Sunday to demonstrate against plans to build a mosque near the site of Ground Zero, where the twin towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed by Islamist hijackers on September 11, 2001.

Protest organizer Pamela Geller, a conservative blogger, and her group, “Stop the Islamicization of America,” planned the event because, according to the group’s website, “Building the Ground Zero mosque is not an issue of religious freedom, but of resisting an effort to insult the victims of 9/11 and to establish a beachhead for political Islam and Islamic supremacism in New York… Ground Zero is a war memorial, a burial ground. Respect it.”

Geller said the NYPD and security at the rally told her about 5,000 demonstrators were there. But NYPD spokesman Sgt. Kevin Hayes said the police department’s policy is to not provide crowd estimates and that he could not confirm Geller’s number. CNN iReporter Julio Ortiz-Teissonniere, who attended the rally and sent photos to CNN, said the number was closer to 200-300 while he was there for the first 45 minutes of the event.

CNN, 6 June 2010

Over at Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer reports:

“The crowd carried signs expressing their love for freedom, their contempt for Sharia, and their anger at Islamic supremacism and insult to the memories of those murdered on 9/11 that this mosque represents. And we had a full spectrum of top quality speakers…. The theme among all the speakers was common: the mosque is an insult to the Americans who were murdered there. It is a manifestation of a radically intolerant belief system that is incompatible with the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.”

SIOA_protest2

Ballot to ban Sharia law in Oklahoma

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDMOND — State lawmakers say it’s a pre-emptive strike against Sharia law, needed to prevent here what has happened in the United Kingdom. An Islamic leader says it’s another example of a rising tide of anti-Islamic bigotry in America.

State Question 755, which likely will be on the ballot in November, would make in-state courts rely on federal and state laws when deciding cases and forbid courts from using international law or Sharia law when making rulings.

The proposal would amend Article 7, Section 1 of the Oklahoma Constitution, and stems from House Joint Resolution 1056, dubbed the “Save Our State” amendment, passed during the just-finished legislative session.

State Rep. Lewis Moore, R-Edmond, a co-author of HJR 1056, said he wanted to express his support very early for the legislation, which is needed because of the “onslaught” coming Oklahoma’s way. “I don’t think we should accept or encourage Sharia law in any way, shape or form,” Moore said.

State Rep. Rex Duncan, R-Sand Springs, primary author of HJR 1056, said Oklahoma is the first state to pass such legislation and he hopes other states will follow. Duncan said Sharia law is entrenched in the United Kingdom. “It is a cancer upon the survivability of the UK,” Duncan said. “SQ 755 will constitute a pre-emptive strike against Sharia law coming to Oklahoma.”

State Sen. Anthony Sykes, R-Moore, a co-author of HJR 1056, said American courts are being more frequently challenged that international law should trump U.S. law. “Sharia law coming to the U.S. is a scary concept,” Sykes said. “Hopefully the passage of this constitutional amendment will prevent it in Oklahoma.”

Council on American-Islamic Relations spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said he has been working on Muslim civil rights issues for several decades and anti-Islam rhetoric is approaching “Nazi-like” levels. “This is just the flip side of the anti-Semitic coin,” Hooper said.

Edmond Sun, 4 June 2010

Ballot to ban Sharia law in Oklahoma

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDMOND — State lawmakers say it’s a pre-emptive strike against Sharia law, needed to prevent here what has happened in the United Kingdom. An Islamic leader says it’s another example of a rising tide of anti-Islamic bigotry in America.

State Question 755, which likely will be on the ballot in November, would make in-state courts rely on federal and state laws when deciding cases and forbid courts from using international law or Sharia law when making rulings.

The proposal would amend Article 7, Section 1 of the Oklahoma Constitution, and stems from House Joint Resolution 1056, dubbed the “Save Our State” amendment, passed during the just-finished legislative session.

State Rep. Lewis Moore, R-Edmond, a co-author of HJR 1056, said he wanted to express his support very early for the legislation, which is needed because of the “onslaught” coming Oklahoma’s way. “I don’t think we should accept or encourage Sharia law in any way, shape or form,” Moore said.

State Rep. Rex Duncan, R-Sand Springs, primary author of HJR 1056, said Oklahoma is the first state to pass such legislation and he hopes other states will follow. Duncan said Sharia law is entrenched in the United Kingdom. “It is a cancer upon the survivability of the UK,” Duncan said. “SQ 755 will constitute a pre-emptive strike against Sharia law coming to Oklahoma.”

State Sen. Anthony Sykes, R-Moore, a co-author of HJR 1056, said American courts are being more frequently challenged that international law should trump U.S. law. “Sharia law coming to the U.S. is a scary concept,” Sykes said. “Hopefully the passage of this constitutional amendment will prevent it in Oklahoma.”

Council on American-Islamic Relations spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said he has been working on Muslim civil rights issues for several decades and anti-Islam rhetoric is approaching “Nazi-like” levels. “This is just the flip side of the anti-Semitic coin,” Hooper said.

Edmond Sun, 4 June 2010

Call for veil ban in Australia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

For obviously superficial reasons, I’ve always associated Belgium with expensive chocolates, rather than political acts of bravery. That changed with its decision to ban the burqa. For a tiny country to be prepared to publicly reject this symbol of oppression gave me great hope that other open societies like ours could follow suit.

Since then, of course, an Australian MP, Senator Cory Bernardi, inflamed the Muslim community by describing the burqa as the “preferred disguise of bandits” in the wake of it being used by an armed robber in a Sydney shopping centre.

Notwithstanding the Senator’s cultural foot-in-mouth routine, far greater politicians have also expressed opposition, such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who described the burqa as a “sign of subservience” and said that, in France, “we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity”.

And so it should be in this country that a stand is taken to expressly reject the eye-slitted, head-to-toe covering that renders a woman a shapeless non-person. On the basis of human decency and basic equality between the sexes, that position would seem a no-brainer but incredibly such a move is seen by some as intolerant.

What is it about the Australian condition that makes us feel as though we have to continuously apologise for who we are and what we stand for? Tolerating the burqa is not about multicultural harmony, it merely allows us to turn a blind eye to subjugation.

Liam Bartlett in the Sunday Telegraph, 30 May 2010

Radio talk show host calls for ‘Ground zero mosque’ to be blown up

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Houston talk show host this week called for the bombing of a mosque if it’s built near the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City.

In comments Wednesday on KPRC-950 AM, Michael Berry said, “I’ll tell you this – if you do build a mosque, I hope somebody blows it up.” Berry added: “I hope the mosque isn’t built, and if it is, I hope it’s blown up, and I mean that.”

The remarks came in an angry exchange with a caller who insulted Berry and said Muslims should be able to build mosques wherever they want. They were discussing a pending proposal to build an Islamic Center just a few blocks from the attack site in Manhattan.

Houston Chronicle, 28 May 2010

Detroit bus system rejects ‘Leaving Islam?’ ads

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Motown has no use for the anti-Muslim ads plastered across the sides of buses in New York City. Detroit’s SMART bus system has rejected the button-pushing placards that read “Fatwa on your head? Is your community or family threatening you? Leaving Islam?” – and direct Muslims to a Web site urging them to leave the “falsity of Islam.”

“It’s a purely anti-Muslim hate issue,” Dawud Walid of the Council on American-Islamic Relations told the Detroit News on Friday. “The SMART bus company, or any bus company, should not be used to marginalize a minority group.”

Defenders of the ads, dreamed up by Manhattan-based right wing blogger Pamela Geller and the New York-based Stop the Islamization of America, say it’s a free speech issue and they have sued. Americans have a right to know the truth; Islam is a religion of intolerance and violence,” said Michigan lawyer Richard Thompson, who filed the suit.

New York Daily News, 28 May 2010

See also “Bus agency sued for refusing Muslim defector ads”, Associated Press, 28 May 2010

And “The truth behind the ‘Leaving Islam’ campaign in Detroit”, Dawud Walid’s blog, 28 May 2010

‘Is Labour handing Tower Hamlets back to the Islamists?’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Andrew Gilligan poses the question. He’s outraged at the report that “Labour’s candidate for the directly-elected mayoralty of Tower Hamlets will be selected by the entire local membership”. Doesn’t the Labour hierarchy realise that supporters of the Islamic Forum of Europe are members of the party in Tower Hamlets? Are they really going to be allowed to vote on who their mayoral candidate will be? It is clearly intolerable that IFE supporters should be allowed to exercise their democratic rights in this way.

Geller’s ‘Leaving Islam?’ bus ad arrives in New York

Posted on by Bob Pitt

*May 25 - 00:05*

NEW YORK — The questions on the ads aren’t subtle: Leaving Islam? Fatwa on your head? Is your family threatening you?

A conservative activist and the organizations she leads have paid several thousand dollars for the ads to run on at least 30 city buses for a month. The ads point to a website called RefugefromIslam.com, which offers information to those wishing to leave Islam, but some Muslims are calling the ads a smoke screen for an anti-Muslim agenda.

Pamela Geller, who leads an organization called Stop Islamization of America, said the ads were meant to help provide resources for Muslims who are fearful of leaving the faith. Geller said the ad buy cost about $8,000, contributed by the readers of her blog, Atlas Shrugs, and other websites. Similar ads have run on buses in Miami, and she said ad buys were planned for other cities.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials said Geller’s ad was reviewed and did not violate the agency’s guidelines. “The religion in question would not change the determination that the language in the ad does not violate guidelines,” MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz said Wednesday.

Faiza Ali, of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the ads were based on a false premise that people face coercion to remain with Islam. She said Muslims believe faith that is forced is not true belief. Geller has a history of speaking out against Muslims, and the ads are “a smoke screen to advance her long-standing history of anti-Muslim bigotry,” Ali said.

Huffington Post, 26 May 2010

Update:  Robert Spencer is not happy.